He's a de-ad un, that's a sure thing!"
At my shot all the bevy rose a little, yet altered not their course the
least, wheeling across the thicket directly round the front of Archer,
whose whereabout I knew, though I could neither see nor hear him. So
high did they fly that I could observe them clearly, every bird well
defined against the sunny heavens. I watched them eagerly. Suddenly one
turned over; a cloud of feathers streamed off down the wind; and then,
before the sound of the first shot had reached my ears, a second pitched
a few yards upward, and, after a heavy flutter, followed its hapless
comrade.
Turned by the fall of the two leading birds, the bevy again wheeled,
still rising higher, and now flying very fast; so that, as I saw by the
direction which they took, they would probably give Draw a chance of
getting in both barrels. And so indeed it was; for, as before, long ere
I caught the booming echoes of his heavy gun, I saw two birds keeled
over, and, almost at the same instant, the cheery shout of Tim announced
to me that he had bagged my towered bird! After a little pause, again we
started, and, hailing one another now and then, gradually forced our way
through brake and brier toward the outward verge of the dense covert.
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